A Sense of Occasion

A death in the (dysfunctional) family - can the three remaining members hold it together long enough to organise the funeral?

Mary’s death is inconvenient – for her daughter Patch, ex-husband Robin, and niece Jude. Patch must deal with death-related admin and speak to people outside of her family. Robin would much rather go and cruise farmers in the layby than be a responsible father and grieving heterosexual widower. And Jude must return from her new, erotically charged life in Naples to rescue this hapless pair: organising the funeral and making a lasagne.

In Mary’s small, chaotic house in the West Midlands, each of them is trying to feel something: to mourn, to atone, to join in, to be better. Her absence in their lives brings new complications and lurching sexual undercurrents, broiling until they spill over the surface.

A whip-smart, darkly funny and deeply entertaining novel, A Sense of Occasion subverts and perverts your expectations. Will the family make it to the funeral intact?